The impressive variation amongst biological individuals generates many complexities in addressing the simple-sounding question what is a biological individual? A distinction between evolutionary and physiological individuals is useful in thinking about biological individuals, as is attention to the kinds of groups, such as superorganisms and species, that have sometimes been thought of as biological individuals. More fully understanding the conceptual space that biological individuals occupy also involves considering a range of other concepts, such as life, reproduction, and agency. There has (...) been a focus in some recent discussions by both philosophers and biologists on how evolutionary individuals are created and regulated, as well as continuing work on the evolution of individuality. (shrink)

The view that it is better for life to be created free of disability is pervasive in both common sense and philosophy. We cast doubt on this view by focusing on an influential line of thinking that manifests it. That thinking begins with a widely-discussed principle, Procreative Beneficence, and draws conclusions about parental choice and disability. After reconstructing two versions of this argument, we critique the first by exploring the relationship between different understandings of well-being and disability, and the second (...) by more briefly focusing on the idea of a significant reason. By placing these results against the broader historical and ongoing contexts in which the lives of those with disabilities have been deemed of inferior quality, we conclude with a call for greater humility about disability and well-being in thought and practice. (shrink)

This is another volume in the Modern Studies in Philosophy, a series of anthologies under the general editorship of Prof. Amelie Oksenberg Rorty, which present contemporary interpretations and evaluations of the works of major philosophers. This volume, consisting of a collection of papers by an impressive gallery of scholars, offers a plurality of perspectives on Spinoza. Each interpretation conflicts with some other; yet each illuminates some aspect of the subject. All the papers reflect the "tensions" and "conflicts" which make for (...) very exciting and rewarding reading. Still the substantive puzzles remain and will continue to excite and fascinate successive generations of Spinoza's critics. (shrink)

Living things are often plastic during their early development and are moulded by the environment. Many human fetuses have to adapt to a limited supply of nutrients, and in doing so they permanently change their physiology and metabolism. These programmed changes may be the origins of a number of diseases in later life, including coronary heart disease, stroke, diabetes and hypertension.

Illustrates the similarities between the enslavement of Black people and the enslavement of animals in both the past and the present.

Are the sculpture and the mass of gold which permanently makes it up one object or two? In this article, we argue that the monist, who answers ‘one object’, cannot accommodate the asymmetry of material constitution. To say ‘the mass of gold materially constitutes the sculpture, whereas the sculpture does not materially constitute the mass of gold’, the monist must treat ‘materially constitutes’ as an Abelardian predicate, whose denotation is sensitive to the linguistic context in which it appears. We motivate (...) this approach in terms of modal analyses of material constitution, but argue that ultimately it fails. The monist must instead accept a deflationary, symmetrical use of ‘materially constitutes’. We argue that this is a serious cost for her approach. (shrink)

Norwegian health professionals, elderly people and family members experience ethical problems involving end-of-life decision making for elders in the context of the values of Norwegian society. This study used ethical inquiry and qualitative methodology to conduct and analyze interviews carried out with 25 health professionals, six elderly people and five family members about the ethical problems they encountered in end-of-life decision making in Norway. All three participant groups experienced ethical problems involving the adequacy of health care for elderly Norwegians. Older (...) people were concerned about being a burden to their families at the end of their life. However, health professionals wished to protect families from the burden of difficult decisions regarding health care for elderly parents at the end of life. Strategies are suggested for dialogue about end-of-life decisions and the integration of palliative care approaches into health care services for frail elderly people. (shrink)

We argue that in contemporary business organizations, in which fundamental purpose is construed to be increased value—especially in ‘participative’ organizations, in which non–hierarchal interaction (for example, work teams) is the norm; and in ‘adaptive’ organizations, in which unpredictable change is the rule—a process of values covenanting will be much more valueable than just espoused values or even values covenants. We propose such a process model for organizational values covenanting and argue that such covenanting reflects an anthropomorphism of the human character (...) development process, validated in terms of the theory of viable systems. (shrink)

Each chapter heading bears a phrase from a contemporary author, held to incorporate the character of that section of the study under consideration. Chapter 1 carries the title given to early English translations of the Lettres provinciales; chapter 2 recalls the description of Pascall by Boyle and other English scientists; and chapter 3 draws from Kennett's preface to his version of the Pensees. The heading of chapter 4 is from Pope's Essay on Man. The exclamation which introduces chapter 5 concludes (...) an essay in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1789, probably by Boswell; the words for chapter 6 come from a pastoral letter of John Wesley; and chapter 7 represents the verdict of Coleridge. The title of the book itself is derived from the heading to the twenty-first chapter of Kennett's Pensees, which seems to have forecast the essence of the eighteenth-century's perplexity upon the issues raised by Pascal: 'The strange Contrarieties discoverable in Human Nature, with regard to Truth, and Happiness, and many other things.'. (shrink)

Within recent feminist philosophy, controversy has developed over the desirability, and indeed, the possibility of defining the central terms of its analysis-"woman," "femininity," etc. The controversy results largely from the undertheorization of the notion of definition; feminists have uncritically adopted an Aristotelian treatment of definition as entailing metaphysical, rather than merely linguistic, commitments. A "discursive" approach to definition, by contrast, allows us to define our terms, while avoiding the dangers of essentialism and universalism.

This essay explores some relationships between social structures or systems and the internal psychological structures or systems of individuals. After defining evil, pastoral counseling, and structures or systems, I present examples of persons affected by social systems of power who have sought counseling. I present a form of counseling known as Internal Family System Therapy (IFS) and show with an extended example how I have worked with clients using this approach. In this process the client is guided to use "Self-leadership" (...) in healing and transforming inner conflict between various subpersonalities or "parts." I then compare the IFS approach to one used by mediators in community conflict transformation and peacebuilding. (shrink)

This volume presents new work in history and historiography to the increasingly broad audience for studies of the history and philosophy of science. These essays are linked by a concern to understand the context of early modern science in its own context.

Can an assessment of individuals’ narcissism help explain the quality of a respondent’s ethical judgment? How is the relationship between religiosity and ethical judgment moderated by the effects of narcissism? With a sample of 385 undergraduate business majors, this study uses a taxonomic approach to examine the effects of intrinsic and extrinsic religiosity as well as orthodox Christian beliefs on ethical judgment. Three distinct clusters were identified: Skeptics, Nominals, and Devouts. Surprisingly, of the three clusters, Nominals and Devouts were the (...) only groups impacted by narcissism, although Skeptics overall demonstrate the worst ethical judgment. (shrink)

In this paper I want to examine a view of the Darwinian theory of evolution which was put forward fairly recently by A. R. Manser. His approach is of interest not only in itself, but also because it may be expanded to raise some fundamental questions about the nature of the science of biology in general. I shall not consider these further implications here, but shall concentrate on an examination of his thesis in the context in which it is raised. (...) My paper falls into two sections. In the first I shall state Manser's thesis and some of the arguments with which he supports it, and shall try to show how a series of objections raised by A. G. N. Flew and K. Connolly may be answered. In the second I shall offer on my own account a positive argument to provide a possible basis for his point of view, with the aim of indicating why the theory should be of the kind he suggests, and what form the study of evolution must take. (shrink)

Michel Foucault's ethics of embodiment, focusing upon care of the self, has motivated feminist scholars to pursue promising models of embodied resistance to disciplinary normalization. Cressida Heyes, in particular, has advocated that these projects adopt practices of “somaesthetics,” following a program of body consciousness developed by Richard Shusterman. In exploring Shusterman's somaesthetics proposal, I find that it does not account for the subjective challenges of resisting normalization. Based on narrative theories of subjectivity, the role narrative plays in normalization, and a (...) commitment to developing concrete, feminist practices of embodied ethics, I develop a model of “narrative somaesthetics” based on an updated consciousness-raising model that emphasizes group heterogeneity and narrative conflict that deals with these challenges. Through an analysis of interviews with self-identified femme lesbians and a “female to femme” transition support group featured in the documentary film, FtF: Female to Femme, I argue that narrative somaesthetics enables the analytical, genealogical work required to identify and weaken normalization's constraints on embodied feminist ethics. (shrink)

Infinite Awareness pairs Woollacott’s research as a neuroscientist with her self-revelations about the her mind’s spiritual power. Between the scientific and spiritual worlds, she breaks open the definition of human consciousness to investigate the existence of a non-physical mind.

The United States, unlike most developed countries, continues to use the marital couple as the taxable unit for its income tax. This continued use of the marital unit— like its original establishment —rests on cultural preferences. This Article suggests that the roles of marriage, religion and taxation in America are essential factors in America’s retention of the marital unit. Part I examines the distinctive contribution marriage — especially the traditional single-earner breadwinner marriage — makes to the political life of the (...) country. Part II explores the similar role of religion. Part III describes some congressional efforts over the past two decades to aid, ostensibly, married couples through the income tax. Part IV concludes that although these actions have not been the most effective or efficient means of helping married couples, they nevertheless serve an important expressive purpose. Tax has been the arena for many political issues since the founding of the nation. Consequently, congressional actions and rhetoric regarding the income tax’s "marriage penalty" reinforce the marital unit/joint return and reaffirm — even if only symbolically — a national commitment to marriage as instrumental to American democracy. (shrink)

La cohabitation avec la dialyse à domicile, ce lieu privé habituellement préservé de la maladie, invite à des questionnements sur la dynamique du couple au regard du nouveau rôle de soignant endossé par le conjoint et de celui de patient assigné au conjoint malade. Les auteurs, psychologues cliniciennes, interrogent ici les motivations conscientes et inconscientes qui conduisent à cette décision commune et leurs retentissements sur la dynamique du couple. Différentes configurations relationnelles observées dans notre clinique seront abordées. L’article, cas clinique (...) à l’appui, montre l’intérêt d’un groupe thérapeutique avec malades et conjoints pour mettre à jour les enjeux, au niveau de la relation de couple, d’une prise en charge à domicile. (shrink)

Analysis of an interview conducted by a white researcher with an African American nutritionist points to the significance of racial-ethnic dynamics in the conduct of qualitative research. Interviewers who follow the standard methodological rule—to let findings “emerge” from their data—may fail to hear the significance of race-ethnicity in the accounts of informants. Close analysis suggests that talk will sometimes reveal racial-ethnic dynamics even when these are not explicit topics and that active attention to such structured inequalities produces a more robust (...) analysis. Institutional ethnography and narrative analysis are discussed as alternatives to the grounded-theory approach to qualitative analysis. (shrink)

A central tenet of constructivist models of conceptual development is that children's initial conceptual level constrains how they make sense of new evidence and thus whether exposure to evidence will prompt conceptual change. Yet little experimental evidence directly examines this claim for the case of sustained, fundamental conceptual achievements. The present study combined scaling and experimental microgenetic methods to examine the processes underlying conceptual change in the context of an important conceptual achievement of early childhood—the development of a representational theory (...) of mind. Results from 47 children (M age = 3.7 years) indicate that only children who were conceptually close to understanding false belief at the beginning of the study, and who were experimentally exposed to evidence of people acting on false beliefs, reliably developed representational theories of minds. Combined scaling and microgenetic data revealed how prior conceptual level interacts with experience, thereby providing critical experimental evidence for how conceptual change results from the interplay between conceptions and evidence. (shrink)

Are the sculpture and the mass of gold which permanently makes it up one object or two? In this article, we argue that the monist, who answers ‘one object’, cannot accommodate the asymmetry of material constitution. To say ‘the mass of gold materially constitutes the sculpture, whereas the sculpture does not materially constitute the mass of gold’, the monist must treat ‘materially constitutes’ as an Abelardian predicate, whose denotation is sensitive to the linguistic context in which it appears. We motivate (...) this approach in terms of modal analyses of material constitution, but argue that ultimately it fails. The monist must instead accept a deflationary, symmetrical use of ‘materially constitutes’. We argue that this is a serious cost for her approach. (shrink)

With questions raised as to whether or not nursing knowledge should be developed from extant conceptual/theoretical models or from practice-based environments, this paper utilizes Kuhn's disciplinary matrix and Laudan's model of consensus formation to explore the changing nature of the discipline's structural matrix. Kuhn's notion that a discipline's structural matrix includes symbolic generalizations, models and exemplars, and Laudan's view that a maturing discipline embraces factual, methodological, and axiological (goals and aims) knowledge, and that context and discourse are also involved in (...) advancing a discipline is described as a means for reconciling the source of nursing knowledge. This paper posits that shared axiological goals connect both theorists and practitioners, and resolve potential conflicts as to viable sources of nursing knowledge. Through shared goals that include humanization, meaning, quality of life, caring, consciousness, transcendence, and presence, which bridge both theoretical and practice approaches, nursing's charge to contribute to the good of society is fulfilled. (shrink)

When the world's first face transplant was performed in France in 2005, the complex medical procedure and accompanying worldwide media attention sparked many ethical issues, including how the media covered the story. This study uses framing theory to examine what happens when media ethics intersect with bioethics by analyzing French, American, and British media coverage on the transplant and its aftermath. This study looks at how this story was framed and which bioethical issues were focused upon. The media ethical implications (...) of these findings are then discussed. By doing so, this article attempts to contribute to the debate on how complex medical stories with bioethical components can be reported in an ethical manner. (shrink)

Some time ago, the editors of Monthly Review invited me to submit a short review of two recent books by Ellen Wood: The Pristine Culture of Capitalism, and Democracy Against Capitalism. I found myself, in the course of re-reading these books, filled with admiration for most of what the author said, and indeed, for the manner in which she presented her case. At various points, however, I found myself not fully satisfied. But a short review was not the place to (...) develop my concerns. (shrink)

Given the increasing need for solid organ and tissue transplants and the decreasing supply of suitable allographic organs and tissue to meet this need, it is understandable that the hope for successful xenotransplantation has resurfaced in recent years. The biomedical obstacles to xenotransplantation encountered in previous attempts could be mitigated or overcome by developments in immunosuppression and especially by genetic manipulation of organ source animals. In this essay we consider the history of xenotransplantation, discuss the biomedical obstacles to success, explore (...) recent developments in transgenic sourcing of organs and tissues, and analyze the problem of infectious disease resulting from xenotransplantation (xenosis). We then apply a model of risk analysis to these risks. The conclusions of this risk analysis are used in an ethical evaluation of informed consent in xenotransplantation, with an ethical foundation in Kantian autonomy and Levinasian heteronomic alterity. Our conclusion is that individual and collective informed consent to the infectious disease risks of xenotransplantation requires an open, participatory and dialogical public policy process not yet seen in the United States and Europe. Until that process is created, we propose caution in xenotransplantation in general and a postponement of solid organ xenotransplants in particular. (shrink)

Tragedy and Citizenship provides a wide-ranging exploration of attitudes toward tragedy and their implications for politics. Derek W. M. Barker reads the history of political thought as a contest between the tragic view of politics that accepts conflict and uncertainty, and an optimistic perspective that sees conflict as self-dissolving. Drawing on Aristotle's political thought, alongside a novel reading of the Antigone that centers on Haemon, its most neglected character, Barker provides contemporary democratic theory with a theory of tragedy. (...) He sees Hegel's philosophy of reconciliation as a critical turning point that results in the elimination of citizenship. By linking Hegel's failure to address the tragic dimensions of politics to Richard Rorty, John Rawls, and Judith Butler, Barkeroffers a major reassessment of contemporary political theory and a fresh perspective on the most urgent challenges facing democratic politics. Derek W. M. Barker is a program officer at the Kettering Foundation. (shrink)

Social categorization is an early emerging and robust component of social cognition, yet the role that social categories play in children's understanding of the social world has remained unclear. The present studies examined children's explanations of social behavior to provide a window into their intuitive theories of how social categories constrain human action. Children systematically referenced category memberships and social relationships as causal-explanatory factors for specific types of social interactions: harm among members of different categories more than harm among members (...) of the same category. In contrast, they systematically referred to agents' mental states to explain the reverse patterns of behaviors: harm among members of the same category more than harm among members of different categories. These data suggest that children view social category memberships as playing a causal-explanatory role in constraining social interactions. (shrink)

“Talking Back to Frida: Houses of Emotional Mestizaje” is, in part, a historical meditation on the silencing of three women, Frida Kahlo, Maria Enríquez, a Mexican woman who was sexually assaulted in 1924, and me. Written in an innovative historical fashion that joins techniques drawn from fiction, journalism, and history, the article attempts to understand specific assaults on women’s voices by drawing readers into the historical worlds of the protagonists. “Talking Back” also seeks to respond to Hans Kellner’s incisive theoretical (...) challenge: how do historians’ person histories affect their historical choices? The article’s organization depends on my understanding of language, color, and physicality, as the emotional architecture of the Deep Southern and Mexican places tend to both enclose and partially free the protagonists. The essay begins by leading the reader into my own past in the Deep South, a past where German Jewish and Russian Jewish relatives engaged in a cultural battle over form, personal style, and will. Confronting a German Jewish world where only things—never feelings—seemed to matter, I found solace in the friendship of a black servant. That friendship, in turn, helped prompt a particularly empathic historical voice. The southern section is followed by a journey into Frida Kahlo’s Mexican world. In that world, Kahlo’s severe physical pain and solitude construct inner and outer universes. The people who populate these worlds are friends, lovers, husband, and the Mexican poor. Kahlo’s artistic renditions of these people reflect, the article suggests, both the depth of her love for them and a tendency to use them in response to her despair. Finally, “Talking Back” reconstructs the world of María Enríquez, a Michoacán peasant woman assaulted in public by her former boyfriend. Abandoned by friend, sister, and Catholic women on the way to church, Enríquez develops a voice laced with generosity, cultural insight, and a rare self-possession. (shrink)

Resumen: En el presente trabajo intentaremos destacar la necesidad que existe hoy, para la terapia ocupacional, de entablar un diálogo con la filosofía, enfatizando la relevancia de plantear la pregunta concerniente al ser humano en cuanto ocupación. Se plantea que la terapia ocupacional se encontraría en una situación de crisis de los fundamentos que la orientan y le brindan sentido a su práctica, proponiendo como posible solución una revisión de los aspectos principales de la analítica del Dasein de Martin Heidegger, (...) con el objeto de clarificar por qué y cómo el fenómeno de la ocupación puede ser considerado como un momento constitutivo de cada existencia humana. (shrink)